Ninja Bow Wows
by Reinbeauchaser
Summary: An AU on what could have happened if it hadn't been turtles and rats. A one-shot.


_**Disclaimer:**__I wrote this a long time ago – 2004, I think. It was going to be a multi-chaptered bit, with a lot of AU going on. However, I decided to keep it a __one-shot. __H__ope you enjoy!_

**Ninja Bow Wows**

_By reinbeauchaser_

x x x

Michelangelo stretched and yawned, then turned over to glance at the alarm clock sitting on the side table next to his bed.

"Wow, it's six a.m. already? I'd better get a move on!"

He then jumped enthusiastically out of bed, landing on all fours.

Mikey stretched a good long stretch and once he had worked out every kink and wrinkle, he took up his armbands and then his belt from the top of his dresser. After putting them on, he pushed his head through his mask, and then made his way out of the room. As he headed towards the main living area of the lair, he felt an itch behind his left ear.

Down went his rump and up came his back left foot. Soon he was giving himself a good scratch, his foot working furiously. When he had conquered the itch, the ninja Jack Russell terrier stood up and wagged his tail excitedly. Then Michelangelo continued his energy-filled gallop towards the room most important to him.

The kitchen!

Thirty minutes earlier and just down the hall from Michelangelo's bedroom, Leonardo, the German Shepherd, had been busy doing his morning katas. Positioned ten feet above the dojo floor, Leo raced across a narrow wooden beam. The beam, twelve feet long, had each end placed atop two facing ladders. As Leonardo reached the opposite side from where he started, the ninja Shepherd jumped through a fire-rimmed hoop, and then leapt eight feet to the floor where he landed deftly on all fours. Never hesitating, he dropped to his side and seamlessly executed several perfect rolls. Completing the set, he raced over to the ladder again, climbed the rungs to the twelve-foot board above, and repeated the exercise once more.

After a few dozen reps, the mutant ninja dog went on to his next routine. He jumped onto a very large, red ball. From there, he worked the ball around the room as easily as one would if they were strolling through the park. Sometimes he would do it on all fours, other times he stood on his hind feet, while still other times he stood on his front feet. He did it backwards, side-wards, and he even did it with his eyes closed! Never once did he lose his balance.

After he had completed several rotations around the dojo, the ninja dog Leonardo leapt off the ball and stood proudly. Not even tired, Leonardo smiled. His father would be pleased with him.

Leonardo then switched off the gas feeding the ring of fire and the flames went out with a 'poof'. Suddenly, his nose told him that breakfast was ready. He smacked his lips in anticipation and gave a quick shake of his body, his tail doing likewise. He then bolted out through the dojo doorway, loping easily down the hall towards the living room and, ultimately, the kitchen.

Somewhere in the lair and deep inside his room, Donatello, the ninja Australian Shepherd, was ear-deep into his latest project, not having slept a wink all night. Determined to re-wire the toaster he had found the day before – as well as the microwave, the television, and the radio he found on his foraging trip in the junkyard - he had already replaced many of its parts, but the wiring caused him his greatest concern. He smiled, though, because more than anything, Donatello loved working. He could herd any challenge into submission and solve any problem faster than Michelangelo could wag his tail.

And when he thought about Mikey's tail, Donatello chuckled, "What a waste of energy THAT is!" Donatello was glad he didn't have much of a tail, because as far as he was concerned it was a useless appendage anyway, especially one as in-between as Mikey's! "Hardly worth calling it a tail. Might as well crop it completely!"

Now, if tails had opposable thumbs or digits, that might be different, and as Donatello thought about it, another invention came to mind! He added it to his day's list of things to do and he smiled wide, white teeth gleaming against pink gums. His nub of a tail wagged furiously under his rump (and vibrated his chair). Donatello was quite happy.

Elsewhere in the lair and deep in dreamland on his bed slept the mutant ninja Rottweiler, Raphael. He grumbled in his sleep as much as he grumbled in life, but as a smile began to play along his relaxed face, he mumbled in his dreams.

"Take you down, Shredder-Cat, take you down an' grind you up in m'teeth and spit you out like yesterday's kibble!" A bit of drool escaped his mouth and dropped to his pillow, the shimmery line of spaghetti-like goo pooling in a miniature puddle.

Suddenly, he heard galloping in the hallway, as if someone was running, and so he snapped awake. Fearing an invasion by the Shredder-Cat, instinctively, Raphael reached for his weapons, but then Raphael felt something poke into his cheek.

"Ow!" Raphael growled, finally and completely waking up. He felt around his neck and suddenly realized that he had forgotten to take off his spiked collar before going to bed the night before. "Need t'remember t'do that next time," he grumped to himself, rubbing his cheek where the spikes had poked.

Suddenly, the ninja dog's stomach growled – louder than he had growled in his sleep. Raphael realized he was hungry and when he saw the time on his alarm clock, his eyes went wide.

"S'help me, if that stupid airhead terrier, Michelangelo, eats up all the morning kibble, I'll bust his head open," and Raphael exploded from his bed. He grabbed his sai, his armbands and mask, then his belt, before nearly busting through his bedroom door to get out. He just missed careening into Leonardo, too, but then charged down the hallway towards the living area. As he ran, Raphael growled and bellowed, yanking his red mask tight around his head, "MIKEY, YOU BETTAH LEAVE SOME KIBBLE FER ME!"

In a room far from the four mutant ninja pups sat a wise old ninja master. In fact, he had been awake long before his oldest son had begun his katas. Master Splinter sat on his bed, all eight legs tucked into a lotus position. He sat there, his six eyes closed in meditation, focusing on nothing. For many long minutes, he succeeded.

However, the sound of Michelangelo racing through the lair and then Raphael's outburst cutting through the master's blessed peace, pretty much ended his session of solitude. Hissing a frustrated breath, Master Splinter, the mutated ninja spider, eased one leg at a time from their constrained positions. When he had them fully extended, he smacked his manacles experimentally and realized he was very, very hungry. He cracked one of his six eyes open and looked around his room, hoping an errant fly or moth or even a rat had found its way into his abode. Finding nothing among the giant webbings he had spun along the walls the night before, the sage old spider realized he would have to settle with whatever the other traps in the lair had caught. If they were empty, too, he would then most certainly have to go out into the sewers to find breakfast.

After all, with four very plump and tempting canine pups littering the lair, the old mutated ninja spider would find them hard to resist, adopted sons or not. Consequently, it was most important that he find food and as soon as possible, if only to placate his natural instincts – thereby keeping his sons from a very unhappy ending.

Easing from his bed, Master Splinter scurried over to the door and slipped out into the hallway.

He hesitated, instinctively scanning all walls and ceilings.

Nothing.

"Rats, and I'm really hungry, too!"

Suddenly, an ungodly scream echoed up the hall from the living room area. Splinter's ears perked up…well, if he had any they would have. Concerned that maybe the dreaded Shredder-Cat had finally found the lair, Master Splinter raced the length of the corridor with the speed of any oversized and very huge spider – which he was - and emerged panic-stricken into the living room.

There, below him, and stuck to one of the walls of the lower level hung Michelangelo, squirming and thrashing within the webbing that the sage mutant spider had spun the night before.

Master Splinter's six eyes narrowed deliciously.

"I told ya t'save me some kibble, you dimwit!" Raphael bellowed.

"I swear, I didn't eat it all, honest!" Mikey pleaded, his plaintive cries growing louder and more desperate. The harder he struggled, the more he became stuck.

Suddenly, an all too familiar sound of many feet came to the young pup's ears and now he really began to fight his sticky restraints.

"Raph, you have to help me, you can't leave me here like this!" Mike's eyes widened even more when he saw his 'father' skitter down the walls and into the living room, manacles clacking.

Raph laughed evilly, his nubby tail wagging in furious abandon.

Master Splinter scurried to the left and then stopped. He skittered to the right and then forwards a bit, and stopped again. Scurry sideways, skitter forwards, and then back the other way as if…as if…he was stalking Michelangelo.

"H-h-help me?" Michelangelo pleaded loudly, his eyes begging Raphael to undo him.

The poor Jack Russell mutant yipped and yelped as Master Splinter the mutant spider came closer and Mike thought for sure he would become the ninja's first meal of the day.

Leo punched Raphael, "Cut him lose, Raph, or I'll bite your tail!"

"Bite me, then…you cut him loose."

"I didn't throw him in the web, you did!"

"Someone, ANYONE cut me lose; Dad's gonna EAT me!!!!!" Mike cried. The thought of his father sucking all his insides out nealry made Mike lose his appetite for breakfast. Almost. Mike was always hungry.

Caving under the stern glare of his older brother, Leonardo, Raphael snorted and quickly sliced the webbing with a sai and freed his baby brother. Mike fell to the ground in heap and then bounded away just in time.

At the same time, Master Splinter leapt towards the webbing where Mike had just been. When he realized his breakfast was no longer there, the mutant spider came to an abrupt and apparently disappointed halt. The master huffed indignantly as he stared at the now-empty web, clacking his manacles irritably together. Suddenly, he blinked all six eyes and seemed to gather his wits, again. He looked around in confusion and barely saw Michelangelo race up the stairs to the second level, quickly disappearing into the hallway (probably back to his room). When the sound of a slammed door and seven deadbolts slipping into the doorjamb came to everyone's ears, it confirmed – for morning anyway – that Michelangelo would be staying in his bedroom.

"Hmm…" Master Splinter muttered, once again, in control of his instincts, "That was close!"

x x x

As Master Splinter scowled down at Michelangelo, his ten-year old son's creative-writing assignment grasped tightly in his hands, "I asked you to give a simple account of our family, to describe your brothers, to..."

"Well, if there had been dogs in the ooze, it could have been like that!" Mikey explained imperiously, giving an indifferent shrug of one shoulder.

The rat narrowed an eye and tried to control the curve of his lips from smiling, "Possibly. Still, spiders do not eat dogs!"

"Big ones could."

"Hmmmph…I highly doubt..."

"Can I _have_ a dog?"

"No."

"Bummer."

Fini


End file.
